The power of citizen diplomacy

Our hosts’ two babies ran round, hurdling over toys scattered throughout the carpeted lounge. Scrumptious smells wafted from simmering pots and pans lining the galley kitchen. The bustle of a number of conversations crammed the air.

As we started to eat, we realized extra about one another. Our gracious hosts have been Slovak and Slovenian immigrants. Each had achieved careers in authorities and public service. Each have been enthusiastic about household and cherished to journey. My good friend and I, in flip, shared extra about our personal careers, households, backgrounds and pursuits. By the top of the meal, new friendships have been born.

Once we completed, certainly one of our hosts left the desk and headed to the again of the condo, out of sight, for an prolonged time frame. Once they returned, I requested if the whole lot was OK. I used to be unprepared for the response.

In a really nonchalant tone, they defined that they have been checking on a Ukrainian household dwelling within the spare room of their two-bedroom condo. Surprised and confused, my good friend and I leaned in to pay attention. The household of three — a mom, father and daughter — had been dwelling with them for a number of weeks. Each dad and mom labored, purchased their very own groceries and used the kitchen when their hosts have been sleeping. I puzzled aloud whether or not the household could need to come out and meet us. Our hosts replied that regardless that they inspired the household to deal with the condo prefer it was their very own, they not often left their bed room, for a easy however comprehensible purpose: They didn’t need to be extra of a burden.

As devastating because it was to be a refugee household, the truth that they felt like a burden was nearly an excessive amount of to course of. After ending our meal and departing, I spent that night time reflecting on that meal and enthusiastic about that Ukrainian household.

For one, the generosity, openness and normality with which our hosts opened up their modest condo to the Ukrainian household was exceptional. However on the identical time, whereas we had simply befriended this pretty household, we had missed a possibility to have interaction with and find out about one other.

As a husband and father myself, I couldn’t think about the ache, struggling and grief they have been going by way of, and I revered their proper to privateness and anonymity. However I nonetheless felt a accountability to speak to them, sympathize with them and listen to their story. Certainly, deep down I felt an obligation to know extra. After which an final responsibility to share their story.

Which is why I used to be there within the first place.

My good friend and I have been a part of a cohort of Individuals who traveled to Europe beneath the auspices of the German Marshall Fund of the U.S.’ monthlong Marshall Memorial Fellowship. We have been there to have interaction in one thing fairly easy: citizen diplomacy, or the pursuit of citizen-to-citizen connections, cross-cultural understanding and customary values. Our mission, in essence, was to have encounters identical to the one I described.

My story is however certainly one of many tales of not simply my colleagues, however of a breed of citizen diplomats looking for higher worldwide relations by creating open areas to higher join and talk. For it’s precisely these protected, open and unifying areas that the world wants extra of proper now.

At the moment, we face unprecedented international challenges. The rise of nice energy competitors. An impending local weather disaster. World democratic backsliding. Fast advances in disruptive know-how. A lack of belief in establishments. Every of those issues creates and sows division and isn’t bounded by borders.

The world desperately wants extra citizen diplomacy that focuses on grassroots engagement, rallies round widespread values, celebrates what makes us totally different and seeks a standard future. All of us want to inform our tales.We have to pay attention and empathize with others, assist carry up the weak and act as examples of the wonderful energy and alter that an engaged citizen can convey forth. We’d like extra meals just like the one I had that night.

My one remorse on that journey was that I didn’t meet that Ukrainian household. However I nonetheless maintain out hope that others could and that they may proceed on the journey of forging a world social material that values everybody for the one factor that actually unites us: our humanity.